2008 Brabus Widestar

Just who is Brabus to go and pick on Oprah Winfrey like that?

We expected that maybe German tuner Brabus had dressed up some famously porky celebrity—like Louie Anderson, or Kirstie Alley, or maybe someone still actually relevant like Oprah Winfrey—with fender flares and rocker panels and a roof spoiler and called him or her the Widestar, but that just ain't the case.

What's actually happened is all those things have been tacked onto Mercedes-Benz's largest passenger vehicle, the GL-class SUV, and the resultant Widestar looks like nothing so much as an oversize last-gen Saturn Vue Red Line crossed with a German redneck's impression of "mad tyte" Japanese riceyness.

The rocker panels have embedded "LED entrance lights," but they just look like hokey wiper-nozzle neons that got lost on their way to the hood. The 23-inch wheels are wrapped in rubber thin enough to make a dominatrix outfit, and there's a special Brabus-tuned setting for the GL's Airmatic suspension that allows the big truck to get lower to the tune of 1.2 inches.

Of course, such highly modified vehicles aren't complete without engine tuning, but Brabus makes you pay extra for that. The company offers performance upgrades for all GLs, including diesel and V-8 versions.